


Shades of Pastel to Red

by pisinoe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Image, Body Worship, Chubby Rey (Star Wars), Demisexuality, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fat Shaming, Forbidden Love, Gyms, Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Older Man/Younger Woman, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Power Dynamics, Romance, Sexual Experimentation, Unrequited Crush, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Weight Gain, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:20:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28540926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pisinoe/pseuds/pisinoe
Summary: Red: the color of passion, the symbol of womanhood. Pink: the shade of little girls and delicate things. Grey: the color of apathy, of letting oneself go.After months of over-indulging, Rey felt grey. Determined to take back her body, to re-color her life with broad strokes of red, Rey decides to attempt the gym. If only she could stop staring at the dark, tall and muscular amber-eyed devil that also frequents it.A pity that Ben Solo was her family's sworn enemy.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Shades of Pastel to Red

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Please remember that as I'm writing chubby Rey here, this fic has content about body image and issues that you may find triggering or not, but I hope to have tagged accordingly. If not, please respectfully let me know in the comments. If it's too close for some, please take care of yourself and do not read this.
> 
> Chapter count may go up or down, I haven't decided yet, let's see what happens first! Thank you to tmwilson3 for being an awesome beta, ksco for the summary and master eirene_underthesun for helping me out with plotting this.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading it and please leave a comment if you do :)

* * *

**Shades of Pastel to Red**

**Chapter 1: Cream**

Looking at the reflection of her body in the mirror, Rey could barely recognize herself.

She could no longer count her ribs or circle her waist easily. Her hips were fleshier. Her thighs didn’t have a gap anymore, and her arms had filled out. Her face was rounder, her cheeks puffier and her jawline not as pronounced. Gone was the girl that barely weighed fifty kilos most of her late teens, and instead there was a woman that had grown into her body and could afford to eat whatever she wanted whenever she pleased.

And that was exactly the problem: she had eaten everything she wanted and more that she couldn’t before. 

Food was a privilege when she was younger, and now it was a luxurious commodity she could afford to indulge in. She had never really learned how to build a good relationship with it because she didn’t have the option to pick and choose before; she ate to survive, not because she just could. And although she certainly wasn’t complaining, because food was certainly one of her guilty pleasures and favorite parts of being alive, she missed being...it.

While she wouldn’t consider herself fat and still loved her body, maybe she had let herself go a little too much. The clothes that she bought without properly trying on didn't fit anymore. She had become a bit too lethargic for her liking, definitely lazy, and also chubby. And even if she still loved, appreciated and cherished who she saw in the mirror because of how lucky she was to be able to splurge on every meal she craved, Rey missed feeling attractive.

Maybe it was because she finally had enough time to look at other women and wanted to be as confident, outgoing and good-looking as them. When before that didn’t matter to her because she had other priorities to be worried about, now she was able to afford the luxury of being superficial and wanting to take care of herself more. To actually _enjoy_ herself and her body beyond survival. And maybe, eventually also to enjoy putting herself out there and taking the risk of exploring a world of intimacy she had considered disappointing before. 

It had been a few months since she moved back to Coruscant after leaving five years ago.

She could no longer make excuses and leave it for another day. She had already taken back control of her life, why not of her body and health, too? She had come so far and endured way too much to let herself go like this. If she didn’t do her best by herself, who would?

In times like these, she needed to remind herself that she no longer was a helpless eighteen year old girl that got rejected and laughed at by a society that she didn’t fit in with. Rey was now twenty-three, and a grown up woman who could make her own choices in life.

But first, she just needed to get her lazy ass to go to the fancy gym available in her building.

* * *

Growing up with her maternal grandmother in a small town called Jakku in the middle of nowhere in Brazil, Rey could never really have imagined where she’d end up one day. 

They didn’t have much, but it was enough to survive, especially when she didn’t know what else others had access to. Growing up without parents was hard, even more so because _Vovó_ Maria had always been bitter that her only daughter had gotten pregnant by some American man while working abroad. And then died with him in a car crash, but not after first leaving their child behind for her to care, promising it would only be for a while. 

When she, too, passed, Rey was sent to foster care because no one could track down her father’s family. (Or as she later found out, that was actually in her best interest.) The early years there were the most difficult of her life, but she found some solace with the nuns who kept her company. As early as she could remember, Rey knew that her intelligence was the only thing she had that no one could take away from her. So she studied and studied some more, trying to fill her soul and make someone out of herself. 

Having a hard time connecting to people, she didn’t have many friends, so she read books until the orphanage’s library ran out and taught herself new languages with the help of foreign missionaries. She didn’t have anything but dreams of succeeding and leaving the hellhole of a country she lived in.

The day she turned fifteen, she was told that an anonymous benefactor wanted to sponsor her studies in an international private school. Said benefactor actually turned out to be her paternal grandfather, who had never bothered to visit her until he deemed her worthy enough and had her shipped off to America to live with him after she turned eighteen.

She had expected him to be an old man with some money, lonely and wanting to reconnect with the last of his family. Definitely not the owner of a billion dollar oil corporation and one of the richest men in the southern United States. 

It was hard to believe it at first, because something like that couldn’t possibly happen to nobodies from nowhere like her outside of children’s fairy tales. Yet there she was, a scrawny and disheveled little creature, apparently the lost and only heir to the Palpatine empire. 

Her grandfather only took one look at her when she arrived and scoffed, almost in disgust. 

“First, give her all the food she wants or they’ll think I’m too cheap to feed her. And for God’s sake, make something decent out of that _thing_ before anyone figures out who she is,” he ordered one of his assistants, the man who had come to retrieve her at the airport, before turning his back and entering his impossibly large mansion without even a word to her.

Rey knew then it wasn’t going to be a fairy tale.

The pauper could pretend to be the perfect princess, but never actually become one.

The first month there, she put on five kilos just because she had never eaten such good and easily accessible food in her life. She fell in love with not being hungry anymore.

By the sixth month she weighed ten kilos more, the stress of being a high society débutante without etiquette, elegance and the ideal appearance getting to her. Next to the other rich girls she’d never fit in with, Rey felt like a washed-out imitation.

When she fled Coruscant to go study abroad as the failed Palpatine heir that didn’t belong nor was the perfect scion of the line, she stopped weighing herself.

 _“No one wants a cow for an heir,”_ were the last words her asshole of a grandfather said to her.

* * *

When she called her best friend, Finn, to tell him that she wanted to get in shape, the line went dead silent for a second.

“Wait, what? Why now, all of a sudden? You love food and you never cared about that before, peanut,” he sounded utterly confused, as if he was unsure of the true reason behind her decision. He knew her too well not to wonder. “Is this because of your grandfather’s upcoming gala party? You know you don’t have to go, and that you don’t owe him anything.”

That was easy for him to say, when he wasn’t a disappointment or source of embarrassment to his family. He was the only person from her debutante days that she actually kept in touch with. Finn was adopted by Lando Calrissian as a child, a tycoon of the shipping business that also had another daughter named Jannah around Rey’s age. Maybe that’s why he had been the first person to actually be nice and kind to her, because he saw something of himself in her when everyone else was measuring her worth and wondering what made her special. They bonded over their origins and boring social events, and it wasn’t long until he became her best friend and only confidant among the high society of Coruscant. 

“I would be lying if I said no, but I want to do this for myself. I’m tired of running away, and I don’t want to have to hide anymore. I want to be healthier and take care of myself, but also enjoy my body and like who I see in the mirror,” she replied truthfully, because he was the person who was always on her side even when he didn’t agree with her choices.

Palpatine had been trying to make amends since she returned, mostly through dinner invitations sent by his assistant, but she hadn’t really given him the time of the day yet. Not until she had received the invitation to his upcoming gala party in a month, to which probably all of Coruscant’s elite had been invited. 

Perhaps because she didn’t believe it when he said it’d be good for them to meet again, and his last words still made her angry. And somehow, also fueled her with motivation.

“But you know you’re amazing and perfectly fine the way you are, right? Don’t let others dictate how you should look, much less decide your worth by your appearance.” His concern was sweet, but Rey had been thinking about this for a while.

She not only wanted it, she _craved_ it. She wanted to feel alive, and become the best version of herself.

“I’m doing this for myself, and no one else, I promise. I never really learned how to eat properly or how to lead a balanced lifestyle. I miss being fit, and I’d really like if you supported me in this, to be honest.”

“Of course I will! Jannah knows a good nutritionist that helped her out when she put on weight because of thyroid issues, I’ll get you her number. If you need a personal trainer as well, I can see if mine has a slot for you. We can even be gym buddies if you want!”

He sounded excited, and she could already picture him talking her ears off if they worked out together. Not the best idea, since he was a morning bird and Rey a night owl. Nope.

“I’d appreciate the nutritionist, but for now, I just want to start exercising alone. That already is intimidating enough, and you know we’d never get any exercise done together. Can you recommend a website to buy gym clothes, though?”

Baby steps.

* * *

With time, she grew into her new body and lost some weight after distancing herself from the place and people that were causing her so much stress. The years that passed also helped her with losing baby fat, and Rey didn’t mind being on the fuller side for the first time in her life. Food was a comfort to her, but she knew it wasn’t healthy to be an emotional eater. 

Perhaps fleeing to Europe wasn’t the smartest choice she had made, but at the time it was the best one. The years she spent studying in Brussels were lonely, but they allowed her to figure out who she was and wasn’t, and also made her discover and appreciate her worth. Before falling in love with someone else, Rey had to learn to love herself first. It took time, but she eventually became her own best friend and biggest supporter. That, however, did not mean that she ever stopped running away from her responsibilities as a Palpatine.

She didn’t know what she was thinking when she accepted a job offer in Coruscant, the epicenter of the oil business in the US and a major metropolitan area in the south of the country. What was she so afraid of, after all? Why did she have to be ashamed to return? She could live wherever she wanted; they didn’t pay her bills. And well, her grandfather only remembered that she existed when he needed her for some reason through his assistants. She didn’t need to depend on him anymore after legally inheriting her father’s money.

The fact that he had left her an apartment there helped a lot in her decision to move back.

Rey looked at the keycard access to the building’s gym she had received when she signed the contract three months ago, and took a deep breath. The first day was always the hardest one, Finn had told her. Maybe there would be less people around late at night, she figured.

Well, it was now or never. 

* * *

“I haven’t seen you before! Are you new here?” the gym’s receptionist asked after greeting her. Jessika Pava, her name tag said. She was smiling quite a lot for someone working past ten o'clock.

Rey smiled back sheepishly. “Uhm, kind of? I moved in three months ago, but it’s my first time mustering courage to come down here.”

“Well, this late usually only the night-owls are in, and our personal trainers have already left for the day. But don’t hesitate to come to me if you need any help!”

Rey thanked her, and then took a look around the place. It wasn’t as big as the gym chains she had looked up online, but it definitely looked nice and well-kept. To be expected from the type of building complex she was living in, which was far from cheap and almost exclusive. It looked modern, clean and with more than enough machines. 

Making a beeline for the cardio sector, Rey hopped on one of the treadmills and put on her earphones, going straight for the motivational playlist Finn had sent her. After twenty minutes, she was already dying of exhaustion and boredom. Sedentarism was a bitch.

No one was there to laugh at her dying while sweating buckets and making a fool of herself, at least.

She was about to hop off the machine and give up for the day, too tired to stop her eyes from wandering. She looked over to the other area directly facing where she was, and saw a man doing the bench press. He was the only other resident around at that hour.

It was wrong to stare, but Rey couldn’t help herself. There was something familiar, yet strangely alluring about him. The type of person to make an impression if she had ever seen him around before, which she definitely didn’t.

He was _huge_ , in a way that kept her eyes fixed on him. Big-framed and muscular, but not the unnatural shredded type she saw flexing on instagram. His long, thick fingers were clasped around the metal bar as he lifted probably more than her worth in weights, big arms bulging with muscle. The black shorts and shirt he wore barely concealed his physique, and the long hair that curled softly around his neck was bathed in sweat, clinging to his pale skin.

She had never taken an interest in exercise before, but after seeing him bench press, it suddenly had become attractive and engrossing. In her daydreams of staring at him, she realized another ten minutes had gone by without her barely noticing or struggling. Now she understood what people meant by needing a good distraction while working out.

The way he grunted as he lifted the bar was doing something to her head, she concluded. Rey was demisexual, for God’s sake. But maybe she did have a type after all, because he looked quite similar to the only guy who had caught her eye years ago. And then cruelly dismissed her.

This one was all man, and looked older. Handsome even from a distance. Definitely compelling. She wondered what he did for a living to live there and look like that, as she often did about random people she’d never talk to. Probably some corporate hotshot or famous jock. The type to break her heart and set her body on fire, she guessed. Not that it could ever happen to her.

It gave Rey a little shock when he suddenly lifted his head and stared right at her. She turned away immediately, embarrassed to have been caught staring. Pretending to type something on her phone, she kept her head down and tried to soothe her nerves. From her peripheral vision, she saw him get up, clean the machine and come towards the cardio sector.

She was about to pledge insanity or run away, or both, when he walked straight past her to the elliptical machines on the other end of the room. 

Only then did she risk another glance, and completely forgot how to breathe for a second.

He was staring right back at her. 

Fuck, now she knew why he looked so familiar. 

Five years had passed, but she’d remember that disdainful look anywhere.

The first time she had seen _him_ , it was at the gala her grandfather had thrown in order to reveal and introduce her as his long lost heir to Coruscant’s high society. 

She had looked the best she ever had in her life, to the point she could barely recognize herself in the mirror once the hired stylists were done with her, almost like a scene out of the Princess Diaries movie she had watched as a child. But no amount of expensive makeup, professional haircare and luxury clothes could hide the fact that she wasn’t highborn, and didn’t belong there with those that were. 

He was fresh out of college, six years older and the owner of the most soulful and captivating amber eyes she had ever seen in a man. He was good-looking, handsome if one overlooked his slightly crooked nose and skin dotted with moles, which to her just made him all the more interesting. Dressed in Armani, he looked expensive and polished, but his hair gave him a rebellious air that kept her eyes following him the whole night.

Maybe if she wasn’t actually trying so hard to find out where she belonged, it wouldn’t have hurt as much as it did when he was a complete dick to her when he found out who she was.

Ben Solo carried the entire weight of that legacy and hate for her family with him in each step, in each brusque word of their brief but cold intro.

He hated her before she even had a chance.


End file.
